source: Peoples Dispatch
First published in Colombia Informa in Spanish.
Social movements in Colombia marked the anniversary of Camilo Torres Restrepo’s death and disappearance on February 15, which coincided with the return of his remains after an arduous struggle for justice.
Priest, intellectual, and revolutionary, Camilo Torres Restrepo became a symbol of social movements in Latin America and around the world when he was killed and disappeared in 1966 at the hands of the Colombian Army. The recent discovery of his body, which had been disappeared by the Army for six decades, puts his name back at the center of Colombian historical memory, just as the 60th anniversary of his death in combat is commemorated.
The origins of a leader
Jorge Camilo Torres Restrepo was born in Bogotá on February 3, 1929, into a privileged family of the Colombian elite. He was the son of Calixto Torres Umaña and Isabel Restrepo Gaviria.
He began to study law at the National University, but he abandoned the career to become a Catholic priest, influenced by some Dominicans he met through his girlfriend’s father. He was ordained in 1954.
A year later, Camilo traveled to Belgium and studied sociology at the Catholic University of Louvain, where he graduated in 1958.
Upon returning to Colombia, he connected with the causes of the poor under a fundamental commitment: effective love for one’s neighbor.
Liberation theology and sociology
Camilo was a pioneer of liberation theology, a movement that proposed uniting Marxism with Christianity. He sought unity among peoples and embraced a transformative and revolutionary vision.
Read more: Camilo Torres Restrepo: the importance of unity and love in the face of a united right
Thanks to his sociological studies, he produced several writings that made significant contributions to the social sciences.
However, Camilo Torres did not remain confined to theory. Unlike other intellectuals, he decided to take action and join various social experiences.
Together with Orlando Fals Borda, Eduardo Umaña Luna, María Cristina Salazar, Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda, Carlos Escalante, Darío Botero Uribe, and Tomás Ducay, among others, he participated in founding the first Faculty of Sociology in Latin America, at the National University of Colombia. There he also served as professor and chaplain.
The beginning of his struggle
His commitment to popular causes grew increasingly. He joined and founded the University Movement for Community Promotion (MUNIPROC), was part of the technical committee for agrarian reform at the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA), and presided over the first national congress of sociology, among other activities.
His multiple social and community activities soon brought him into conflict with the Catholic Church hierarchy, led by Cardinal Luis Concha Córdoba, starting in 1961. The continuous clashes forced Camilo Torres to request his reduction to the lay state.
On June 24, 1965, with tears in his eyes, he officiated his last Mass at the Church of San Diego in Bogotá. The pressures from the conservative Colombian Church clashed with his revolutionary and Christian vision, which held that true Christians should join the revolutionary struggle.
Camilo, the revolutionary
After founding the United Front in 1965, Camilo radicalized his position and decided to create a political movement that would seek unity among all popular, revolutionary, democratic, and abstentionist expressions, to fight for real and profound transformations in society.
While holding rallies, mobilizations, protests, and large popular gatherings throughout the country, he established contacts with the National Liberation Army (ELN), an insurgent group that had carried out its first guerrilla march on July 4, 1964.
His strong connection to popular and revolutionary struggles, his charisma and leadership ability, as well as his ties to the ELN, became evident to government security forces, who kept him in their sights from the beginning.
The guerrilla priest
According to writer Walter J. Broderick, author of the book “Camilo Lives“, Camilo Torres’s life was in danger and there was growing fear that he would be assassinated by government forces. Fabio Vázquez Castaño, the top ELN leader at the time, even assigned militants from that group to protect him.
However, the fear of suffering an assassination attempt forced Camilo Torres to formally join the ranks of the ELN and travel to the jungles of Santander in October 1965.
Camilo Torres Restrepo’s joining of the insurgent group was announced through a public statement he signed on January 7, 1966.
Camilo Torres died reaching for a rifle
On February 15, 1966, the country was shaken by the news of Camilo Torres’s death at age 37 in Patio Cemento (Santander). He died after being wounded in combat during an ambush by the National Army. It is said that he was shot while trying to take a fallen soldier’s rifle.
After his death, the legend began. This was in part because the military and the Colombian state refused to return the body to Isabel Restrepo, Camilo’s mother, who is now recognized as one of the first searching mothers of disappeared persons in the Colombian armed conflict.
Camilo became a symbol of social and popular struggles. Several schools and neighborhoods bear his name. He inspired women and men to join liberation theology and revolutionary struggles in Colombia and Latin America.
The disappearance and discovery
The attack in which Camilo died was led by General Álvaro Valencia Tovar. The military officer ordered the body buried in an unknown location near the combat site and subsequently, he ordered him to be buried in a military pantheon in Santander. Despite requests from his family, friends, and the social movement, his body remained disappeared for 60 years.
On January 23, 2026, the ELN reported that it had found Camilo’s body. That same day, the Unit for the Search of Persons Given as Disappeared (UBDP, an entity created as a result of the 2016 peace agreements) confirmed that in 2019 it had received a search request, led by Jesuit priest Javier Giraldo.
After the discovery was confirmed, the National University announced it would hold a Mass to commemorate 60 years since Camilo Torres’s death. At that same university, they built an ossuary to house the remains of the founder of the Faculty of Sociology.
The handover is frustrated on the 60th anniversary
Camilo Torres’s body was supposed to be handed over ahead of a mass on February 15, at the University to mark 60 years since his assassination. However, reportedly, the lack of definitive certification from the Legal Medicine Institute prevented the remains from being returned in time for the mass.
Jesuit priest Javier Giraldo denounced that, for political reasons, Legal Medicine did not allow the handover of Camilo Torres’s remains to coincide with the Mass celebrated at the National University to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his death. The university community had hoped to bury him in the ossuary built in his honor as part of the religious ceremony.
Hours following the mass and decades since the demand for his return began, the UBDP completed the handover of Camilo’s remains to Father Giraldo to rest at the Chapel of the National University of Colombia (UNAL).
The identification process
The UBPD confirmed that on June 19, 2024, it recovered a body that, according to associated and morphological indicators (such as age, biological sex, height, build, and signs of violent trauma) could correspond to the disappeared priest.
The entity reported that the collected evidence has been meticulously correlated with information provided by various sources: documents, testimonies, and historical research. These elements, along with the technical-scientific findings, have been relevant in confirming several investigative hypotheses.
They explained that the initial inspection of the body describes injuries consistent with bone traumas identified in the structures recovered by the Search Unit’s forensic team.
They also confirmed that the bone samples collected to extract genetic material (DNA) (both from the body and from some of his relatives, exhumed by the UBPD in December 2024) have been processed in different accredited and certified genetic laboratories in Colombia, including the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences. During the first week of December 2025, they also sent samples to a laboratory in the United States, whose results allowed the investigation to advance.
The struggle for memory continues
The struggle for the return of Camilo Torres Restrepo’s remains transcended the figure of Camilo and became a symbol of the long struggle of the Colombian people for truth, memory, and justice. Like Camilo, thousands of Colombian men and women have been killed at the hands of the Colombian state during the over six decades of the country’s armed conflict. There are over 137,000 cases of disappeared people registered by the UBPD in incidents related to the armed conflict. The return of Camilo to the National University and to the people is one important step in the struggle for true peace, and justice.
